


you're familiar, like my mirror

by Princex_N



Series: mint and wool sweater and vinyl car seat [7]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Autism, Autistic Gansey, Autistic Henry, Casual Ableism, Conversations, Echolalia, Gen, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Gansey takes a break from class, and Henry joins him.They talk.





	you're familiar, like my mirror

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes from the professor are close/identical to the lecture from my Sociology class last semester. 
> 
> Sort of warning for casual/unintended ableism

"I know that it can be tedious learning things that are intuitive, and that you already know, but I need to go over this regardless, so please pay attention." The teacher speaks loudly in order to be heard over the hushed chatter of students throughout the classroom. Some make an effort to be quieter, but very few actually stop talking. 

Gansey wishes that they would. He has absolutely no idea what's going on, and he would prefer to be able to focus on what the teacher is saying instead of the grating noise of whispered voices and pens scratching on papers. 

"Social interaction is largely unconscious and natural. There have been studies on isolated tribes in remote locations, as well as a study on children who had been blind since birth, and throughout these circumstances, these people's facial expressions and body languages were fairly typical, despite having never observed it before." 

She clicks through to the next slide, which shows four photos of the same man, a different facial expression depicted in each image.

_'Happy, Sad, Disappointed, Angry,'_ Gansey identifies after a moment of studying. 

"Happiness, Grief, Anger, and Disgust," the teacher rattles off a second later. "But you all already knew that." 

Gansey hadn't. Well. He had gotten one of them right at least. 

"The majority of communication between humans is actually completely nonverbal- shown through facial expressions and body language instead of being spoken. Humans have a natural desire to connect with other humans, and while communication is definitely a form of connection, eye-contact is the most basic form of contact that we have." 

Gansey is decidedly uncomfortable. He has been for a while, but the longer this lecture goes on, the worse it's starting to get. He doesn't want to have to continue to sit through all of this. 

_'You sit still in your seat, and you sit there until you're dismissed_ ,' the voice in the back of his head reminds him. 

_'Let yourself do what you need to do to take care of yourself,'_ Blue's statement from an earlier day counters back. 

Gansey stands up and leaves the room. 

The door closes behind him and easily silences the sound of stubborn hushed chatter and the too-loud voice of the lecturing teacher. The hallway is much quieter, only the sounds of shoes shuffling down some far-off hallway and the hum of the air-conditioning can be heard. 

He supposes that he should go to the bathroom, since that's where it's understood that students can go when not in class, but he doesn't really want to spend an indeterminate amount of time sitting in a stall either. He opts for sitting on a bench in the hallway outside of his classroom and hoping that no one will ask him what he's doing. 

He sits and crosses his arms, letting his arms tighten around the sides of his vest and pull the garment tighter around him, listening to the faint rustle of the plastic beads inside and allowing the heavy weight of it to tighten around his back. He tries to focus on that instead of what's going on in his head. 

Sociology was a class that he had taken in order to attempt to avoid an uncomfortable psychology class, but it's turning out that sociology might not be much better. 

Gansey has always been uncomfortably aware of how he is  _different_ from 'normal' people. He doesn't particularly need another teacher outlining all of those differences aloud with a convenient bullet point slide for him. 

"Hey, you okay?" someone asks, and Gansey looks up sharply to meet the eyes of Henry Cheng. "I saw you leave," he jerks his head back towards the door of the classroom, as if Gansey might have forgotten which one he'd come out of. 

"I might've just gone to the bathroom," Gansey points out, because he feels like he has to. 

Henry grins, "But you didn't." He flops down next to Gansey, and the bench rattles slightly under the impact. Gansey tries not to let the sudden shifting throw him off balance. "So, what's up?" 

Gansey falters as he tries to come up with something to say. There are ways to talk around this without ever having to mention that he's autistic, although Henry is, at this point, the only one of Gansey's friends that doesn't already know about it. Though, they haven't been friends for very long. Does that make a difference? Gansey supposes that it only really matters as long as he's comfortable talking about it. He can't tell if he is. 

Henry takes his prolonged silence in stride, and only speaks up when some of Gansey's internal distress begins to show on his face. "It's irritating listening to her talk about how easy it is." 

It isn't a question, it's a statement, and that catches Gansey's attention more than anything else. 

"It's really easy for people to forget that there are atypical people out there," Henry continues, looking off somewhere above Gansey's head, the way Blue tends to. "Gets under my skin. Is that why?" 

"Yes," Gansey replies softly, wondering how Henry was able to nail the feeling so succinctly. 

"You're autistic too?" Henry asks, and Gansey is startled enough to nod. "Yeah, I thought so, but I didn't really want to assume. It's good to know though." 

Gansey should probably say something nice in response. He knows how nerve-wracking it can be to talk about these things, and Henry had stated it so plainly, like he hadn't been nervous at all. But still, it's also plainly obvious that Gansey has not improved much over the years when it comes to reading people's facial expressions. 

Regardless of what he wants, instead of something nice and normal, what decides to come out is: "Am I the only one who thinks I'm doing a good job of hiding it?" 

Henry barks out a startled laugh. "No, I mean, I could only sort of tell, and I know what to look for. Most people probably don't notice at all." 

Gansey supposes that he should be relieved, but mostly he just feels guilty. Like he'd spoken only to say the wrong thing  _again_ , even if Henry doesn't seem particularly bothered by it. 

"It was what she was saying about body language," he offers instead. "About it being natural, and easy. But I spent hours and weeks trying to learn, and I'm still bad at it. People get upset with me a lot, because I can't tell when I mess up until after they'd yelled at me for it." 

Henry just nods, like he understands. "The worst of it for me was a couple of weeks ago, when she was talking about developmental stages and when people learn to talk. I didn't start talking until I was eight, and even then I only echoed. Didn't start using my own words until I was twelve, and even now it's hard. It's annoying to be forgotten about just because you're an outlier." 

Gansey's trouble with talking is mostly that he speaks too much and winds up irritating people, but on bad days he struggles to get his sentences out coherently. It feels uncomfortable to think about what it must be like to deal with that all the time. He searches for the right thing to say, but can't come up with anything that could help. 

"Communicate the way that's easiest for you," he says slowly. He's quoting Blue from a couple of weeks ago, when they had been talking about her learning ASL. It feels fitting to reuse the words, considering what Henry had just told him. "I can figure out what you mean." 

Technically, Blue had said, "Make  _them_ figure out what you mean," but that doesn't seem to be the most applicable phrasing for this particular conversation. 

Henry smiles, wide and relieved. "You're a prince among men, Gansey-boy," he says, and Gansey recognizes the statement and smiles back. 

"We should probably go back before she starts to wonder where we've gone," he says, not wanting to leave, but also painfully aware of the fact that they're going to have to. "Do you think she's stopped talking about it yet?" 

"Probably not," Henry says, but continues, "We should go back." 

Gansey hesitates, and then forces himself to press on before he can think twice about it. "After school today, Blue and I are meeting at Nina's. You should come too." 

"At Nina's?" Henry asks. Gansey nods, and gets another grin in return. "At Nina's." A statement this time, coupled with a nod. Gansey smiles back. 

People stare a bit when the two of them walk back into the classroom together, but Gansey finds that he hardly cares at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sort of torn on this fic, because it's simultaneously something I like but also not Quite what I had wanted to write. I might wind up writing another installation and see if I can hit my own mark a little better. 
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
